LectureLine

Every line counts.

P R O F I L E​ ​Talented and ambitious junior engineers enrolled in Honors Principles of

Engineering based in Dublin, CA. Utilizing extensive and successful experience in a wide
variety of projects and collaboration.

QUALIFICATIONS
● Design and Project Management
● Strong analytical engineering mindset
● Ability to communicate and execute ideas

O B J E C T I V E​ ​To design and create innovative technology that is beneficial to a targeted

crowd in society and successful in its respective field

Jonathan Emmons, Kevin Liu, Sasha Mittal

Honors Principles of Engineering, Period 6 Chou and Period 4 Lewis
2019
Website - ​www.lectureline.weebly.com

© 2019 Project Lead The Way, Inc.

 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 1

CONTENTS

Table Of Contents 1

Problem Statement 2

Research 3-4

Solution 5-6

Product Analysis 7

Contributions 8-9

References 10
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 2

PROBLEM STATEMENT

In high school and college lectures, it is crucial for students to be able to absorb and

record information given by the teachers. Typically, students will record key information in the

form of notes on paper or in a personal electronic device. However, many students might find it

difficult to record all of the information, especially during fast paced lectures where key

information is discussed briefly and can be easily missed. Students need a simple, easy-to-use

mobile application that can be used to record their teachers’ lectures. The app should have

features that supplement students’ studying experiences. Our goal is to create a product that

helps students get the most out of lectures by combining features such as audio recording,

summarization, and resources to additional information into a single, clean app.

 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 3

RESEARCH

The problem of students needing access to

previous lectures and lessons is not uncommon.

According to PCMag, there are several applications that

exist and are currently available to download on iOS and

Retrieved from ​https://www.rev.com/voicerecorder​.

Android devices. However, many of these apps only

accomplish certain tasks and fail to complete other

utilities. For example, the app, “Rev,” has a transcription

function that allows speech to text translation. Another

Retrieved from
app, “RecForge 2,” allows the recording to skip silences.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dje07
Our hope for ​LectureLine​ is for it to accomplish both of 3.android.modernrecforge&hl=en​.

these tasks, as well as many others.

Since live lectures are often very fast paced, students

often try to record the teacher’s voice so that they are

able to refer back to the information later. These

Retrieved from
recordings are not only lengthy and time consuming,
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079541.pdf​.
but often do not allow for a student to completely
Data analysis shows that the 75% of
the students and teachers agree that grasp understanding. For this reason, many students
the visual aids help in clarification of
content. end up watching a lecture recording multiple times,

which ends up taking more of their valuable time as a

 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 4

student. Additionally, students often believe that

simply recording the audio of a lecture and listening

to it later will be enough to comprehend all of the

information. These students forget that visuals such as

pictures and other resources such as articles play an

Retrieved from important role in absorbing all of the curriculum.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079541.pdf​.
According to the Journal of Education and Practice,
Data analysis of if visual aids help the
motivation of teachers and students in
“visuals aids as a teaching method stimulate thinking
Dera Ghazi Khan.
and improve the learning” (Journal of Education and

Practice, 2015).

Another popular solution to this issue is for professors and teachers themselves to record

their lectures using video capture/audio recording software, and provide to students through an

online resource of some kind. The main problem with this solution is that it creates another task

for teachers to handle. College and high school teachers have very busy schedules because they

need to educate hundreds, even thousands of students. The last thing teachers need is to have to

deal with difficulty recording lessons or lectures. Additionally, research has proven that online

video lectures are the least effective way to learn. According to the Hechinger Report, Carnegie

Mellon researchers that studied 28,000 students found that video lectures were a difficult way to

learn. As reported by their results, “students who primarily learned through watching video

lectures did the worst both on the 11 quizzes and the final exam” (Hechinger Report, 2015).
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 5

SOLUTION

Our proposed solution to this problem is a mobile application that combines many

features of existing audio recorders into a single app called “LectureLine.” ​LectureLine ​is a

mobile app that records the audio of a live lecture, writes a transcript of the audio, writes a

summary of the transcript, condenses the audio by increasing the speed and reducing the time

when the teacher is not speaking, and adds useful links and images to key parts and concepts of

the lecture. For example, if a teacher mentions the “School of Athens by Raphael,” the app will

have the functionality to provide an image of the “School of Athens” painting based on audio

input. Additionally, ​LectureLine​ will have the ability to provide a summarized review of the

lecture (in bullet point form) for quick study. The links feature helps a student access more

information about a concept that they may be confused about when looking over their notes.

Our logo (created with logomakr):

In our product design and testing, we used the Google Cloud Platform to write the

program. Google Cloud has an interface that allows development of programs and websites using

various tools and models. For example, a major Google Cloud tool used in our project was a

speech-to-text tool. Additional parts of the program were set up, such as a way to summarize the
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 6

text output from the audio recording. Currently, ​LectureLine​ exists as a desktop program that can

transcribe audio to text, and summarize the text. Our original goal for this project was to create a

mobile app that had additional features, such as audio file “shortening,” that we were not able to

accomplish in the given time. Given more time and resources to develop an iOS or Android app,

more features could be introduced to improve user experience. Additionally, the introduction of

machine learning and artificial intelligence to ​LectureLine​ has the potential to improve existing

features as well as introduce new features to even better analyze recorded lectures.
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 7

PRODUCT ANALYSIS

Our survey was administered to our

target audience of students (people

currently taking classes either online

or in person). From the sample,

58.7% of people listened to at least 3

lectures a week (includes online and

in person lectures). This indicates that

the problem we are solving is

relevant today. 90.3% of survey

participants said they would find our

product, ​LectureLine​, helpful. Our

product would benefit a majority of

people and has the potential to

contribute to and solve a current

problem in education.
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 8

CONTRIBUTIONS

Jonathan Emmons

My main contribution to the project was first, the assisting the brainstorming of ideas in that my

suggestion ended up being the final design, and then the creation of aforementioned idea. The

program I intended to create would automatically shorten video lectures, create an audio

transcription, create a summary, and add text analysis. The features that I was able to complete in

time were the transcription, text analysis, and automatic link insertion.

Kevin Liu

My main role during this entrepreneurship project was digital documentation and

research. I wrote the digital document, including the problem statement, solution summary, and

research. I conducted research on our problem and found examples of existing solutions. I used

the information and ideas collected on the digital document and wrote the Google presentation

that represented the key ideas of our project. I helped to test the program for our project and

proposed ideas to improve the program. I also designed the logo for our product. My role in our

group was to participate in and record ideas from group discussions. I helped to communicate

differences in ideas between group members and clarify the details of our project.

Sasha Mittal

As the project manager of the entrepreneurship project this year, one of my main roles

was ensuring that deadlines were met and the work was equally distributed. In addition to this, I

built the website for our product through weebly. The goal of this website is to promote our

product and inform as many students as possible about the product so that they can make the
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 9

most out of a free and accessible application. The professional website layout and concise

information serves as a strong platform from which we can advertise our product. Besides

creating the website, I also created and sent out the survey to get as accurate feedback as possible

on our product. I used platforms such as Instagram to send out the survey and ensure that it went

out to our target audience, which is shown by the results of the first question on the survey. In

terms of documentation, I set up the document. I did around two thirds of the research, revised

the problem statement, and analyzed the survey results. I also created and built the google slides

presentation.
 Emmons, Liu, Mittal 10

REFERENCES

“Did You Love Watching Video Lectures?” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World
Report, 14 Dec. 2015,
www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015-12-14/did-you-love-watching-video-lectures.
Ghulam, Shabiralyani, et al. “Impact of Visual Aids in Enhancing the Learning Process Case
Research: District Dera Ghazi Khan.” Iiste.org, 2015,
files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079541.pdf.
“How to Record Lecture Videos With Lecture Capture Software and Apps.” Panopto Video
Platform, Panopto, 30 Jan. 2019,
www.panopto.com/blog/how-to-record-class-lectures-with-lecture-capture-software-and-
apps/.
Steele, Chandra. “9 Voice-Recorder Apps That Won't Miss a Second.” PCMAG, PCMag Digital
Group, 29 Mar. 2018,
www.pcmag.com/feature/346474/9-voice-recorder-apps-that-won-t-miss-a-second.